


it really does look black in the moonlight

by Accidie



Series: the rest of their days [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21979627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidie/pseuds/Accidie
Summary: Arthur doesn't wake up, no matter how hard Jack shakes him.
Series: the rest of their days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606714
Comments: 18
Kudos: 153





	it really does look black in the moonlight

Jack wishes he had a nice book to draw in like Arthur. It was hard to draw on the scrap pieces of papers he got from the others journal, the lines got all wobbly and ugly when he tried. There were no good places to draw around their new camp, he tried putting the paper against a tree to keep it flat but the pen just broke through and Lenny had said that it was because the tree was uneven and that he needed something flatter but the tables around the camp were uneven as well.   
  
Arthur had taken him to the town and given him a lot of candy and a new book to read and that's why his drawing had to be good because Arthur had been good to him. Arthur had showed him nice pictures from his journal, pictures of big cats (“Cougars, nasty animals”, Arthur had said. “They sneak up on ya’”) and mooses and elks, Jack wasn’t so sure on what the difference between those were. Jack knew Arthur liked drawings so that's why he decided to draw something nice for him because Arthur always was nice to him.   
  
He was happy that the party still was going on because that meant he got to stay up late and then he could be done sooner with the drawing. He drew a cougar and a wolf but he drew them happy. Next to them he drew Arthur wearing that silly bear hat he had that Jack once tried out but it was too large for him so he couldn’t see anything and almost ran into the campfire when trying to show how funny he looked in it to the others at camp.   
After drawing some flowers around the cougar and the wolf and the silly Arthur he decided that he was done. He had almost run out of space on the paper and he was beginning to feel sleepy. He had rushed in the end because he saw that Arthur had gone to bed and Jack didn’t want to wait until morning so he had hoped to be able to go to Arthur’s tent before the man had fallen asleep.   
  
He gets up on his feet, careful not to cause any wrinkles in the paper. He hopes Arthur likes it. 

\---   
"An' I'm lying there, drunk off me ass thinking I pulled the poor girl's 'air off," Sean slurs, Javier and Bill roaring with laughter. Abigail was glad that Karen and the other girls had retired to the riverbank, she was sure that Karen wouldn't appreciate Sean bragging about the working girl he visited while in town. 

  
The party was dying down, Hosea, Molly and Dutch being the first one to go to bed, surprisingly Uncle too, who never seemed to pass down an opportunity to get drunk, but perhaps age was finally beginning to wear him out.   
Charles and John had volunteered to take the night shift, something John had started to do more often, probably a way for him to get away from her, she thought bitterly. 

  
The only ones still drinking were the girls and Kieran in their own little group, and Sean, Javier and Bill by the campfire. 

"Momma?" a tiny voice calls out, almost drowned out by the loud laughing as Sean continues his tale.   
  
"Jack!" she almost shouts, getting up on her feet. "Why aren't you in bed?"   
  
"I was gonna give Uncle Arthur my drawing", Jack says, and now she sees the paper he's holding clenched in his left hand, the right one still pulling at her skirt. "But he wasn't waking up and I tried to shake him."   
  
"Why are you bothering Arthur when he's asleep?", she scowls.   
  
"Momma, I think Uncle Arthur is hurt", and he says it in such a worried way that her heart clenches, damning Arthur for getting so drunk that he's gotten Jack all worked up.   
  
"Okay", she says to Jack. "We will go and check on him, and after that we go straight to bed?"   
  
She carefully makes her way over to Arthur's tent, her walk a bit less straight than she would have liked, the whiskey she'd drunk finally kicking in.   
"Arthur?" she calls out. His tent flaps are pulled down, which is unusual for him. "Arthur? Sorry to disturb, but the boy wanted to give you-" she begins, but is stopped right in her tracks as she pulls open the flap.   
  
The coppery scent of blood hits her, blood that is staining the sheets, his sleeves, the grass beneath his bed, almost black in color when the reflection of moonlight dances in it.   
  
Her breath hitches in her throat when she finally realizes what she's seeing.   
  
\-   
A few tents away, Hosea wakes up to screaming. It isn’t unusual after celebrations, sometimes its Karen screaming at Sean for some perceived slight, in recent days Molly seemed to have found her voice again, spitting well deserved curses at Dutch. 

It’s not until he realizes its Abigail, screaming after Grimshaw he becomes fully awake. He’s on his feet in the matter of seconds, heart hammering in his chest as he rushes towards Abigail, towards- 

-and for a second he can swear his heart stops completely, his legs turns to lead and he falls to his knees because he sees Abigail now, wide eyes and her hands covered in blood as she’s clutching Arthur’s arms, Jack outside shaking with a piece of paper tucked against his chest, and Arthur, his son, the boy he’d raised for over twenty years unresponsive in his bed, ghastly white with gashes running down his arms and a serene look on his face. 

It will haunt him for years, he thinks, for all the years he has left.   
  
He doesn’t remember much of the rest. He doesn’t remember John ushering Jack away, a grim expression on his face. Doesn’t remember how he ended up in Dutch tent, he vaguely recalls a pair of large, dark hands gently leading him away while Grimshaw and Swanson gets to work, but he does remember Arthur’s face, the calmness of it all among the chaos. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Arthur so peaceful. 

A deep sense of shame settles in his chest when he thinks of all the ways he had failed his son. 

**Author's Note:**

> english is my third language


End file.
